


The Neat Job

by gloria_scott



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: Alternate Ending, Case Fic, F/M, Multi, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloria_scott/pseuds/gloria_scott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the prompt: “Set around the time Ned resolves to only be a pie maker and not a dead-waker, Emerson and Chuck get into a heavy case with several confusing murders and surrounding crimes – turns out they stumbled across the Russian Mob. Unfortunately, this leads to Ned being discovered and taken, so now Chuck and Emerson must work against the clock to find their friend – only to come across Edward Edwards, Ned’s absent father, and the origins of the three curious pocket watches Charles Charles, Edward Edwards, and Dwight Dixon once carried.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perrysian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perrysian/gifts).



> (1) Thanks a million to my beta, Charlotte from The Beta Service!  
> (2) Also, thanks to the anonymous commenter who came up with the initial doughnut idea, which I've twisted to suit my own purposes.  
> (3) “Case” – no pun intended – elements borrowed from the (rather old) headlines: http://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-neat-job-on-mi6-spys-death  
> (4) Lyrics for _Foolin_ by Def Leppard

“Okay, Pie Man. Now, you do this thing for me. I let you go. Everybody happy.”

The Pie Maker's worst nightmare had finally come true: somebody other than Chuck and Emerson knew his dirty little dead-waking secret. His second worst nightmare – being tied to an antique Louis XV style armchair and interrogated by a Russian mobster in a secluded warehouse on the outskirts of town – had, oddly enough, also come true. Still, feigning stupidity came most naturally to the Pie Maker, so in situations of extreme duress he thought it best to play to his strengths.

“What...what thing was that again?”

“You know what thing! I just say what thing! Here is dead body. You make him talk. Or else.”

The Pie Maker's eyes grew round as pastry tins seeing the knife being brandished before them, his arms struggled uselessly against the ropes binding them, and he bitterly regretted not taking frères Ralston and Maurice up on their offer to teach him the fine art of escaping from rope bondage when he'd had the chance.

***

One day, twelve hours and twenty-one minutes prior, the Pie Maker (oblivious to his impending misfortune) was still safely tucked away in the Pie Hole with a fresh batch of pies and an even fresher resolution to abstain from any dead-waking.

Private Investigator, Emerson Cod's attempts to tempt him with stories of mysterious happenings in the morning papers had thus far been as fruitless as an empty pie shell. “Says here a wealthy young man by the name of Bartholomew Wiggins, who had been missing for a week, was found in his apartment yesterday. Guess how he was found.”

“Naked on the toilet?” Ned hazarded a half-hearted guess.

“Nope. Fully clothed in the bathtub. Tied up and stuffed in a suitcase.”

“Aw, good guess, though.” Chuck patted Ned's arm. “The odds were with you on that one.”

“Former State Department analyst turned import/export mogul, Mr. Wiggins, thirty, leaves behind no immediate family. Huh – always some long lost cousin coming out of the woodwork when there's money involved. Neighbors say he was a quiet, eccentric who kept to himself – of course he did. Although Mr. Wiggins was an avid collector of rare antiquities, nothing was stolen from the apartment, and there is no known motive for the alleged murder.”

“Well, that all sounds very mysterious and intriguing,” said Chuck. “I bet Mr. Wiggins has quite a story to tell.”

“If he does, he can tell it to someone else. I have a very busy day of pie making planned.”

“That's just great,” said Emerson, tossing the newspaper aside. “Who am I supposed to get to do all the drudge work, er, I mean, very important mystery-solving leg work?”

Chuck and Olive eagerly raised their hands.

“If it's a choice between Frick and Frack, I pick Frack,” Emerson said, indicating Chuck.

“Yay! I get to be the sidekick?”

“ _Temporary_ sidekick.”

“I'll take it. Sure you don't want to come along for the ride, Ned?”

“Nah. Randy Mann might come by later with my gift for Ralston and Maurice. I should be here.”

“You know,” said Olive, “for all your dad's faults, his boys all turned out pretty good.”

“Well, thank you Olive,” Ned said, a warm smile lighting his face.

“Apart from the crippling daddy issues and the weird magic fetish.”

Ned's smile caught a chill. “Thank you, Olive.”

“All right, enough yammering. Let's go see if there's a case in this case. See what I did there?” Emerson donned his chapeau and departed the Pie Hole with his temporary sidekick in tow.

***

“Anything I should know that didn't make it's way into the morning papers?”

The coroner stared balefully at his two unwelcome, although not unexpected, visitors.

“About twenty dollars worth of things.”

Emerson grimaced, but dutifully kept his side of the bargain with two crisp sawbucks.

The coroner scowled, but reluctantly kept his side of the bargain while discreetly pocketing the bills.

“His parents passed through this way about ten years ago – freak taffy pulling accident while they were on vacation at Coney Island. No other next of kin, and you the only fools come by asking about him.”

Emerson's mumbled thanks was less than heart-felt. When he and Chuck entered the morgue proper, they were met with a nondescript black suitcase lying closed on the nearest of the metal tables. Emerson swallowed his distaste and quickly unzipped the case, throwing back the lid. The intrepid detective and his temporary sidekick peered in at the contorted remains of the unfortunate Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins.

“Oh, poor guy! He doesn't look very comfortable.”

“Pretty sure he had already departed to the next life before somebody twisted him up like a pretzel and stuffed him in the travel bag,” said Emerson. “Come on, this is no case – no pun intended – for us.”

“Wait, why not?”

“Former analyst from the State Department? Owned an import/export business? Kept to himself, no close friends or family? Our pretzel boy here was a spook, and this has got neat job written all over it.”

“He doesn't look ghosty to me.”

“Not that kind of spook, the spy kind of spook. I wouldn't touch this case – no pun intended – for any money.”

Little did the intrepid (if cautious) detective or his eager (if temporary) sidekick know that the discovery of Bartholomew Wiggins was a harbinger of another mystery coming to light – one that had been buried in the desert sands half a world away for twenty-five years.

***

Meanwhile, back at the Pie Hole...

“What did your dad do?” Olive asked, flitting from table to table on her coffee-refresh rounds, while the Pie Maker arranged his freshly baked wares in their display case. “I mean, besides amateur magic and perfecting his disappearing act and ruining your life?”

“He was...a business man.”

“What kind of business man?” Olive pressed on.

“I don't know...exactly. He never talked about it. The kind that has to travel a lot. He was gone a lot, even before he was, you know, gone.”

Olive wilted under the weight of her empathy for the Pie Maker's paternal tribulations. “Oh.”

“Before that he was a soldier.”

“Oh?” Olive brightened.

“Army...I think. Nothing too exciting. Although he did do a tour with a UN Peacekeeping force in the Middle East – that's how he met Chuck's dad.”

***

Young Ned was four years, two months, and twenty-five days old the day his father returned from his tour as a UN Peacekeeper. Edward Edwards would often regale his son with fantastical tales of desert adventures. However, young Ned knew nothing of his father's last and greatest adventure – the one involving a cold-blooded murder, two Russian mercenaries, a Dutch con man, three mysterious engraved pocket watches, and a priceless treasure, lost in the maelstrom of a desert sandstorm.

But that wasn't all his father hadn't told him.

Edward Edwards wasn't so much a business man as an insurance man, who specialized in fraud detection. It was not, however, a position that require him to travel. Shortly after his return stateside, Edward Edwards took up with another woman – a former French cantina girl he'd met in Morocco and imported under a falsified marriage license under another name. It would be another six years, four months and seven days before young Ned, on a fateful Halloween night, would learn of his fathers double life and alternate family.

After his homecoming, Edward Edwards lived in constant fear that the threats of retribution, uttered in Russian and broken English, would some day be made good on by the murderous thieves he and his fellow peacekeepers Charles Charles and Dwight Dixon had helped apprehend. But time passed, and he was lulled by the routine of domestic life. Until one day, exactly five years from the day he arrived home, word reached him that one of the Russians had escaped from an Egyptian prison – his whereabouts unknown.

When young Ned's mother and Chuck's father died on the very same day, this could be no coincidence. Edward Edwards took no chances, and sent young Ned away to protect him, thinking no harm would come to his son if he simply stayed away. He returned to his alternate family under his alternate name, and hoped for the best.

But his past caught up with him once more. Ten years, two months, and fifteen days later, word reached him yet again – the escaped Russian convict had come to America. That very day, Edward Edwards took Ralston and Maurice to a magic show, and reprised his infamous disappearing act one last time.

***

“Did he bring back any mummy treasure from Egypt?” Olive asked, wiping down a recently unoccupied table in preparation for its next occupants. “Maybe that's why he had to disappear, to escape the mummy's curse!”

The Pie Maker swallowed uncomfortably and continued arranging his pies in the pie case. He did not want to entertain the notion that perhaps it was he with his dead-waking ways, not his father, who had in fact been the target of this hypothetical mummy's ire.

“Look, can we please change the subject? My acid reflux is acting up and the last thing I need is to take a painful, bare-foot walk down the hot coals paving memory lane talking about my...”

He turned around, Very Berry Bonanza pie in hand, only to come face-to-face with the last person he expected to see, and the very subject he was trying to avoid.

“...Dad?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hello, Ned.”

Ned's jaw and the pie he had been holding hit the floor at approximately the same moment. Time stood still. Olive Snook, the Pie Hole and all of its patrons faded to black, leaving only him and Edward Edwards, his long lost father, in a rather conspicuous spotlight.

“What are you doing here?”

Edward Edwards stood, familiar trilby hat in hand, a look of penitent hopefulness upon his face.

“Ned, I...”

“Do Ralston and Maurice know you're here? Have you been to see them yet?”

“No, I...

“Because you really should. See them, I mean. They were devastated when you left.”

“I know. Ned, I...”

“Because of course they were. Who wouldn't be? I mean, what kind of a person just leaves their sons at a magic show and promises to come back and then never does?”

“Ned...”

“Really, what kind of person does that? Ralston and Maurice didn't do anything wrong. They were just kids. It wasn't their fault. Right?”

“Ned, I'm sor...”

“I need you to leave now.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Go! Please. Just go.”

Edward Edwards hesitated a moment, then exited stage left. The lights came up, Olive Snook, the Pie Hole, and its patrons reappeared, and time once again continued on its proper course.

Ned stared at the door his father had just walked through. “That went well, don't you think?”

“Oh, Ned. I'm so sorry,” said Olive.

“Yeah. Me, too.” He untied his apron and threw it on the counter. “Could you hold down the fort for a little while? I need to take a walk.”

“Sure thing,” said Olive. Her heart ached for the Pie Maker as she watched him step over the shattered remains of his Very Berry Bonanza pie, grab his coat, and disappear out the door into the brisk winter morning.

***

On their way back from the medical examiner's office, Chuck and Emerson passed by a young urchin hawking wares from the latest addition to the downtown culinary scene.

“Madame Fortuna's Divination and Doughnuts! Today could be your lucky day! Madame Fortuna's Prognostication and Pastry! Discover your destiny, written in the stars! Madame Fortuna's Clairvoyance and Crullers...”

His promotional services hardly seemed necessary. There was always a line at Madame Fortuna's. Even so, it didn't seem to have cut into the Pie Hole's business much, aside from having pilfered the patronage of the men and women in blue. But fewer police hanging around was something that neither the Pie Maker nor Chuck would ever complain about.

“Ooh, doughnuts!” Chuck exclaimed. “Madame Fortuna's place has been here a whole month already and I still haven't tried them. Plus, we could get our palms read!”

“Now if we could get our palms green I might concede,” Emerson snarled. “But I am not waiting in line for some greasy fried dough when I have a comfortable and familiar selection of pies waiting for me back at the Hole.”

“But we won't have to wait long. Look, only four people in front of us.” Chuck gazed up imploringly and grabbed his arm, giving it a little shake. “Please?”

Emerson made his usual show of non-verbal protestations before giving in. Chuck gave a little jump and a muffled clap of her mittened hands, and they joined the quickly dwindling line of expectant patrons.

The store front was small and unassuming, consisting only of a dark wooden door to the right of a heavily curtained window, which displayed a neon palm with “Madame Fortuna's” written above it. Beneath the palm hung an “Open” sign, without which it would have been difficult to discern any business being done inside.

One by one, the four expectant patrons entered and left. Emerson pulled the door open and the heady smells of jasmine incense, bread yeast, and powdered sugar wafted out. Once inside, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloom. The store was hardly larger than the store front – just a small dark room made even smaller and darker by the heavy drapes that hung from ceiling to floor. It was lit by a single red-shaded lamp and contained a single wooden counter top, behind which stood a single, heavily beaded old woman. A limited, but tempting array of doughnuts, crullers, fritters, and twists filled several shelves behind her.

The old woman – none other than Madame Fortuna herself – raised a gnarled finger and pointed at Emerson. “You first.”

“I'll have a chocolate old fashioned. Heavy on the chocolate, light on the old.”

Madame Fortuna gave an indignant huff. “In Madame Fortuna's, you do not choose the doughnut! The doughnut chooses you. Fortune first.”

She looked pointedly down at a black velvet square of fabric upon the counter. Emerson answered with an indignant huff of his own, but obligingly placed his hand on the square, palm up, for it to be read.

“You will come into a significant sum of money very soon. Lucky Lemon Cream Pampushky.” Turning brusquely, the old seer grabbed a doughnut from the shelf behind her, stuffed it into a bag, and dropped it on the counter. “You must eat within the next seven minutes for fortune to come to pass.”

“Yeah, right,” Emerson muttered, but he wasted no time digging into the bag.

Madame Fortuna turned to Chuck, whose now un-mittened palm was already open upon the counter, eagerly awaiting her fortune. Within moments of scrutinizing Chuck's hand, a strange noise began to emanate from the old crone, a sort of high-pitched whining that rose to a crescendo, not unlike a tornado siren.

She rushed from behind the counter, grabbing Emerson and Chuck roughly by the arms and pulling them towards the door. “There is no doughnut here for you!” she shrieked. With a final shove, they were through the door. The lock snicked. The “Closed” sign appeared in the curtained window. Then, all was quiet.

Chuck and Emerson were left reeling on the pavement in front of the shop, one full of righteous indignation, the other full of doughnut.

***

As luck would have it, later that very afternoon somebody did come forward to inquire about the strange passing of Bartholomew Wiggins, though it was no long lost cousin sniffing after an inheritance. While Emerson Cod was alone in his office, a tall, middle-aged man who claimed the name of Ernest Ernst paid him a visit.

Ernest Ernst had a long face and long limbs that carried a strangely familiar hint of adolescent awkwardness about them that Emerson couldn't quite place. Mr. Ernst was adamant that Emerson should investigate the death of the eccentric young man found in the suitcase. He was an insurance adjuster from the Coyle, Drake and Ernst Mutual Life Insurance Company, and he needed to establish whether foul play was involved, or whether it was simply an unfortunate, self-inflicted accident.

“Self-inflicted?” Emerson asked. “You mean you think pretzel boy put that suitcase in the bathtub, tied his own self up, crammed his own self inside, and zipped his own self up tight? And then what, he just forgot to come out again?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Ernest Ernst offered with a shrug.

Emerson could hardly argue with that.

“I'm sorry, but I'm not touching that case – pun intended this time – for any money.”

“My company is prepared to pay ten thousand dollars for your investigative services.”

“Let me finish. I wouldn't touch that case for any money less than ten thousand dollars,” Emerson smiled demurely. “Five thousand up front. Plus expenses, of course.”

***

“Can you believe the nerve of that woman?” Back at the Pie Hole, Chuck was nursing her indignation and relaying the odd occurrence at Madame Fortuna's Divination and Doughnuts to the Pie Maker and Olive. “I've never been thrown out of an establishment in my life!”

Ned raised a dubious eyebrow. “We get thrown out of establishments all the time!”

“But not for no reason!” Chuck protested. “I was really looking forward to having my fortune told. Everyone else's fortunes seem to be coming true. Why don't I get to share in the fun and good luck?”

“That place gives me the creeps,” said Olive. “Have you seen the guys coming out of there after closing time? Wouldn't want to run into them in a dark alley.”

“I think those are just the bakers?” Ned hardly sounded convinced himself.

“Yeah, maybe if they've started teaching doughnut making in Siberian gulags. Anyway, I don't like it,” Olive said. “Although I did find my grandmother's ring that had been missing for a year after I ate a Lost and Fondant Maple Bar,” she added, as a reluctant afterthought.

“You see?” said Chuck. “I want my fortune doughnut, dammit!”

Just then, Emerson Cod entered the Pie Hole to round up his trusty, if still temporary, sidekick.

“Care to kick it with me on this suitcase case?”

“I thought there was no case? Not one that you would touch, anyway.”

“I've had second thoughts,” Emerson replied with a vague wave of his hand. “We need to check out pretzel boy's apartment, see if we can drum up any leads about who might have wanted to do him in.”

As Chuck turned to go, Ned blurted out the news he had, inexplicably, been holding back until that moment.

“My dad came by today.”

Chuck froze, and then slowly turned back. “Your _dad_ dad?”

The Pie Maker flashed a humorless half-smile and shrugged.

“Ned, I...”

“Go. You need to drum up some leads.”

“I could stay, if you need...”

“No, no. Go. I'm fine. We'll talk later. Maybe over doughnuts?”

“Daddy issues can wait, but the maintenance man who's gonna let me into my stiff's apartment can't.” Emerson eyed the door impatiently, and Chuck, reluctantly, followed him out.

***

Within the hour, Emerson and Chuck found themselves inside the penthouse of a highrise on the swankier side of town. Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins' apartment was neat, modern, and minimalist, and turned up little in the way of immediate clues.

But there was one item that caught Chuck's eye as soon as she entered the living room: a small, plain white bag sitting on it's side upon the coffee table. She snatched it up and peered inside.

“A Madame Fortuna doughnut! I don't know what kind it is.” Chuck stuck her nose in the bag and sniffed. “Smells like...raspberry jelly, maybe?”

“I don't care about no hocus pocus pastry.”

“But if we knew what type of doughnut this is, it could give us a clue about his fortune. Maybe Madame Fortuna predicted his death, or warned him to stay away from suitcases or bathtubs or something.”

“Yeah, right,” scoffed Emerson. He held up a crooked finger and did his best Madame Fortuna impression. “You are going on a loooong journey. Afterlife Express Eclair! Maybe she knew exactly where he was going, because she helped to pack him up and send him there.”

“Maybe,” Chuck agreed, perusing the room some more. She approached a set of shelves, back lit and conspicuously placed as if to display fine art, but containing only a selection of wooden inlaid boxes.

“Ooh, decorative boxes! Looks like he was a collector. And see,” Chuck said, pointing to a perfectly rectangular dust-free area on the second shelf down. “One's missing!”

Emerson joined her and picked up one of the boxes. “More like decorative blocks. What good is a box without a lid?” he said, holding it to his ear and giving it a shake.

“They're puzzle boxes.” Chuck grabbed it from him and fiddled with it, sliding one side up, unlocking another panel and opening the box. She held it up with a triumphant smile. “See?”

“Well, judging by the dust and the fact the initial police reports noted no items missing, I'd say the theft happened some time after our stiff's demise and subsequent discovery.”

“So maybe it has nothing to do with the murder?”

“Maybe. But you know how I feel about coincidences.”

“They're the universe tugging at our elbow, trying to catch our attention?”

Emerson shot her an 'oh hell no' look. “Maybe the killer was after something hidden in one of the boxes. He or she was interrupted and had to leave for some reason, and was only able to resume the search after the body was taken away.”

“So the thief could still be the murderer.”

“Haven't ruled it out yet. We need to know what was in that box.”

“And what was in that doughnut.”

“Right. I'll check out pretzel boy's office at the import export place, you check out the doughnut connection.”

“Aye, aye, skipper!” Chuck saluted.

“Don't do that.”

***

Early that same evening, Chuck and the Pie Maker walked gloved hand in gloved hand down the main thoroughfare, as Chuck breathlessly related the fruits of that afternoon's solo mystery-investigating.

“On a hunch, I poked around the public records and found that Madame Fortuna's real name is Svetlana Aristova. She and her partner Yvgeny Yvanoff incorporated Madame Fortuna's Divination and Doughnuts in the state of New York ten years ago. There was no record before that, so I did some good old fashioned Internet sleuthing. Turns out there's an Evgeny Evanoff who is wanted by Interpol and both the Kiev and Egyptian authorities, and who happens to bear a striking resemblance to one of Madame Fortuna's shady bakers.”

“What do the authorities want him for?”

“Oh, fraud, money laundering, extortion. Just Russian mob stuff. Before that he'd done time in an Egyptian prison for murder and fencing ancient artifacts, but he escaped.”

“Huh. Looks like Olive was right about the bakers. What brought them to New York?”

“I don't know, but guess where they opened their first location?”

“Coney Island?”

“Coney Island!”

“So, you think maybe Madame Fortuna and or her mob connected bakers had something to do with Mom and Pop Wiggins' unfortunate taffy-pulling accident?”

“I don't know, but if they are connected maybe Emerson will turn up something.”

They strolled along in silence for a few moments, the Pie Maker searching for an easy way to bring up the most difficult of subjects.

“My dad took me to Coney Island once. We road the Cyclone and I threw up funnel cake all over my sneakers. Kind of soured me on the whole fried dough experience.”

Chuck ceased her strolling and turned to face him. “Oh, Ned – your dad! I'm so sorry. Here I am all caught up in my own thing with Emerson and the doughnuts and...wow! Your dad was here! Tell me everything.”

“Yeah, well, there's not much to tell, really. He showed up at the Pie Hole, I threw him out. If frères Ralston and Maurice are happy to see him, then I'll be happy for them. But I have my own life, and I don't need anything from him. Now.”

“But still, your dad.”

“Yeah. My dad.”

Chuck drew his gloved hand up to her bare lips and kissed it. When they could finally pry their eyes from each other, they looked up to find they were standing in front of Madame Fortuna's Divination and Doughnuts. The neon sign in the window was dark, and nothing seemed to stir behind the curtains.

“Aw, they're still closed. I'm never going to get my fortune doughnut.”

“It's just as well. If Madame Fortuna was in some way responsible for the Wiggins' deaths, it would be a tainted fortune. And nobody wants a tainted fortune. It would be unfortunate.”

Chuck breathed a heavy sigh. “You're right, of course.”

“It's a good lead, though. You and Emerson can pursue it tomorrow.”

“Right. Me and Emerson. Tomorrow,” she outwardly agreed.

But inwardly, Chuck had no intention of waiting another day to confront Madame Fortuna about a long overdue fortune, not to mention her possible connection to the mysterious case of Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins and family.


	3. Chapter 3

Once she made up her mind to want something, Charlotte Charles was single-minded in her determination to get it.This was a quality the more equivocally-natured Pie Maker admired. Even Emerson Cod looked fondly upon it, although he was loathe to admit it out loud. Her tenacity lent itself well to playing the sidekick to a seasoned gumshoe. So it should have surprised neither of them that, at precisely eleven forty-seven that night,Chuck found herself once more outside of Madame Fortuna's doughnut shop looking for a way in.

She had just decided to make her way around to the back alley to try her luck with breaking a window, when a _click_ rang out in the deserted street. The door to Madame Fortuna's shop creaked open. Chuck took this as an invitation, and, looking first left then right to make sure the coast was clear, she stepped inside.

The front of the shop looked much the same as it had earlier that day, but for the lack of its proprietress. Chuck walked softly across the floor, until she came to the heavy drapes hanging beside the counter.

“Hello? Is anybody...?” she poked her head behind the drapes and stopped.

There, at a table in the middle of a small storeroom full of plain white paper bags, brown boxes, bags of flour and other bakery accoutrements, sat Madame Fortuna. Silently, she beckoned to Chuck.

Chuck hesitated and then entered, taking the seat opposite the old medium. On the table between them lay a round cake doughnut with pink icing, and a small glass of milk. Chuck thought she could discern the subtle scent of strawberries.

“Eat!” Madame Fortuna commanded.

“Don't you want to read my palm first?”

Madame Fortuna waved the suggestion away. “No! You are special case. Doughnut first, fortune after.”

Chuck ate. The doughnut was moist and light with the perfect texture: neither too crumbly nor too dense. The strawberry icing was the perfect balance of sweetness: neither too cloying nor too bland. When she was finished, she washed it down with the glass of milk Madame Fortuna offered her.

“Okay, now what?” Chuck asked.

Madame Fortuna leaned forward, her dark eyes pinning Chuck like the talons of a bird of prey.

“Now you tell me how girl who is strangled at sea and thrown overboard is now sitting in my shop, eating doughnut!”

Chuck opened her mouth to protest, but instead out poured the story about lonely tourist, Charlotte Charles. About waking up in a casket to see the face of her childhood sweetheart, Ned, leaning over her. About teaming up with Emerson Cod to solve crimes and help people. About a certain stipulation that kept her and her childhood sweetheart apart. She was able to remain vague about that last part, but Madame Fortuna nodded knowingly nonetheless.

When the words that came spilling out finally ceased, Chuck covered her mouth and gasped. “Why did I tell you all of that?”

Madame Fortuna shrugged and pointed to the empty dish. “Ring of Truth. You had no choice.”

Chuck's eyes welled with tears. Not knowing what else to do, she got up and fled from the table and the doughnut shop, wondering how in the world she was ever going to tell Ned what she had just done.

Unbeknownst to the unwitting confessor, lurking behind the half-open door leading into the kitchen from the storeroom was Madame Fortuna's head baker and business partner, Yvgeny Yvanoff (a.k.a. Russian mobster and escaped convict Evgeny Evanoff). Chuck's doughnut-induced disclosure offered a unique solution to his current dilemma. The mobster's craggy face crumpled into a cagey smile, and the idea that hatched in his fiendish mind quickly grew into a fully-fledged, nefarious plan.

***

It is an indisputable fact that there is never a dearth of bandits and brigands intent on profiting off of the chaos and unrest caused by war. Twenty-five years ago, Edward Edwards ran afoul of some of the worst of this lot: two Russian mercenaries by the name of Dmitry Dmitriyev and Evgeny Evanoff. The third member of their gang and its undisputed mastermind was Claas Closson, a records administrator for the Dutch peacekeeping contingent, and no less dangerous than his comrades for having a desk job.

Claas was assigned to the protection, preservation, and return of ancient Egyptian artifacts, and was therefore privy to a great deal of inside information which he used to great profit. One day, he came across a wire requesting secure transport for a box containing a unique and priceless artifact that was to be returned to the Egyptian government. Although the communique was vague on the details of said artifact, he was determined to acquire it.

The Dutchman had arranged for the two Russians to provide armed escort for himself and the courier transporting the precious cargo. When they happened by chance upon an old abandoned fort in the desert, one not on any map, they decided to act. The Russians did the courier in, while Claas hid the box inside the fort to be retrieved once the coast was clear and the heat was off. After noting the exact GPS coordinates of the hiding place within the fort on a scrap of paper, they returned to Cairo. They took the body of the courier with them, telling tales of murderous desert bandits from which they had only made the narrowest of escapes.

Claas, who had been an apprentice jeweler in his civilian life, nicked three ceremonial gift watches from the Dutch consulate, engraving each with the bearer's initials on the outside and a partial coordinate for the treasure's location on the inside. The scrap of paper was burned. This was the three criminal comrades' insurance – no one of them could find the treasure again without the other two (or at least, without their pocket watches).

No doubt, the treacherous trio would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for their love of Egyptian wine and Dwight Dixon's grasp of the Russian language. While on leave in a seedy Cairo bar, he overheard the two Russians and the Dutchman discussing their plans to return to the desert for the treasure. Dwight alerted his friends Charles Charles and Edward Edwards to what he had heard. The three made overtures of friendliness to the Russians and their Dutch mate, offering glass after glass of strong red wine to loosen their tongues even more. With some cajoling, they got enough of the story to whet their own appetites for adventure, although they remained rather fuzzy on the details of what the treasure might actually be.

In the end, it took seven bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, but eventually the thieving braggarts passed out in their cups. Dwight Dixon relieved them of their pocket watches, keeping one and distributing the others to his associates according to their initials (which coincidentally matched). Hethen called the military police to report the murder of the courier, making no mention of the treasure or the pocket watches. It was the testimony of Dwight Dixon, supported by Charles Charles and Edward Edwards, that sent Claas Closson, Dmitry Dmitriyev, and Evgeny Evanoff to prison for life – a fate for which they uttered many curses and vowed eternal vengeance against the American peacekeepers.

The promise of adventure and immeasurable (if vague) treasure proved to be greater than their sense of duty. Charles Charles, Dwight Dixon, and Edward Edwards left their post the very next day and set forth into the desert. But the promise turned out to be a hollow one. A sudden sandstorm descended upon them, just as the old fort was in sight. When it was over, the old fort, along with their camels, gear and provisions, were irretrievably buried. They walked out, as Dwight Dixon had told Vivian, with their boots, their berets, and their pocket watches and not much else.

The three peacekeepers-turned-bandits vowed to one day go back and dig up the lost treasure. That plan was put on hold indefinitely when they were picked up by another blue-beret patrol, arrested for going AWOL, and shipped back home, each with a dishonorable discharge to his name.

Once State-side, Dwight Dixon never quite gave up the shady life, and was sent to federal prison three years later for a pyramid scheme gone wrong. But Charles Charles and Edward Edwards pledged to settle down into suburban life and go straight, at least until Dwight's prison sentence was up and they could once again resume the search for treasure with a full set of coordinates. And to all appearances, they did settle down (although how straight they went continues to be a matter of some debate).

***

Emerson Cod's late desk-side dinner from his favorite dim sum restaurant downstairs was interrupted by the arrival of a familiar face, made all the more familiar from his having just left her establishment earlier that afternoon with a Lonely Hearts Long John that even now sat half-eaten upon a napkin on his desk.

“Madame Fortuna!”

“No! She is Svetlana, my sister. I am Stepania,” his visitor said, chin tilted at a regal angle and looking for all the world like an even haughtier carbon copy of her soothsaying sister (minus the beads, plus the fur stole).

“And what can I do for you, Madame...Stepania?”

“You must find my husband, Yvgeny. He is missing from last night.”

“Well, you know. Sometimes men just need to get away for a little while. He'll turn up,” Emerson waved her away and turned his attention back to the shrimp dumpling poised at the end of his chopsticks.

“No!” Stepania said. Her hand shot across the desk like a striking snake and grabbed his wrist, interrupting his much anticipated refection. “I am no dummy – my husband, he has his faults. But he is homebody. He returns from work each night by six, so he will not miss Mr. Alex Trebek at seven. He miss his Jeopardy last night! And now it is past seven and he miss it again tonight. I know something is very, very wrong.”

“So why not go to the police? File a missing persons report...”

“No police! In my country, police are dogs. You,” she said, leaning closer and pointing her gnarled and heavily ringed finger at him, “must find my sweet Yvgeny, Emerson Cod.”

The diminutive woman then paced his office, beating her breast in a melodrama that had Emerson riveted, chopsticks poised inches from his mouth.

“Oh, we were so happy in Kiev! I had friends there, a life. Business was good, we make good living and want for nothing. But no, we must come to America to find fortune. Ptooey!” She paused, then silently drew a wad of bills from her designer handbag.

Emerson stabbed the chopsticks back into the paper takeout container and darted out from behind his desk. He pocketed the bills with a smile, then gently grabbed the Russian mob wife by the elbow and escorted her to the door.

“Don't you worry, ma'am. My associate and I will look into the matter A.S.A.P, and with the utmost discretion.”

***

“Was that Madame Fortuna I just saw leaving here?” Emerson's associate said, upon entering the office. “I didn't get a good look at her, seeing as how I ducked behind the dumpster before she could see me.”

“No, that was her creepy doppelganger of a sister. Seems her creepy mobster of a husband has gone missing and she wants me to find him, but that can...wait, why were you hiding behind the dumpster? And where have you been all day? I could have used your help interviewing the staff at the Wiggins Import/Export Emporium.”

“Oh, you know, just here and there.” Chuck shrugged and tried her best to appear her usual insouciant self. However, she had in fact been lying low all day, trying to figure out how to confess to Ned and Emerson what she had confessed to Madame Fortuna the night before. She hopped up and sat on Emerson's desk, eying the remains of his latest doughy acquisition.

Emerson slid the doughnut out of her reach.

“Anyway, it seems our Mr. Wiggins was an avid collector of rare antiquities of dubious provenance. Nobody reported him missing for a week because they thought he was off on one of his 'procurement' trips.” Emerson turned in his chair and sifted through a stack of files and papers on the credenza behind him. “Seems he was jazzed up about some Egyptian puzzle box or other, one his mother had her eye on ten years ago when it came up for sale. She missed out on it, on account of being taffy pulled and all. He was very hush hush about the particulars of the acquisition, due to puzzle box collectors being particularly cutthroat.”

“Who knew?”

“Mmm. But I was able to find this.”

He pulled an old and tattered paper out of the pile: a black and white photocopy of a plain wooden box. “I think this is our missing puzzle box, but I don't know what's in it or why it's so valuable.”

“Do you think Yvgeny, or Evgeny, had anything to do with it? He did escape from an Egyptian prison, after all.”

Emerson smoothed the photocopy out on the desk, and they both leaned over it to scrutinize the various names, dates, and monetary figures that were scrawled upon it and crossed-out.

“I did. But then he went missing, so there goes our prime suspect.”

Chuck leaned in to get a better look at the clue.

“But not our only suspect. There's someone else with a shady past and an Egypt connection.”

Emerson leaned closer to express his interest in this new information.

“And who might that be?”

Chuck leaned closer still, to more intimately impart said information.

“Ned's dad. I don't think it's a coincidence him showing up here all of a sudden, just as Mr. Wiggins dies, his artifact is stolen, and the prime suspect in both murder and theft has turned up missing.”

Emerson leaned even closer still, not really knowing why he did it.

“Nope, probably no coincidence. I don't believe...in...coincidences.”

Before either of them knew what they were doing, their lips met in a tender kiss that all too soon broke off into an awkward silence.

Emerson glanced down at the previously half-eaten doughnut on his desk that was now three-quarters-eaten. “Did you eat my doughnut?”

“No, of course not!” Chuck protested. Emerson's eyes narrowed at the powdered sugar coating one corner of her lip. “Well, maybe a little.”

Before Emerson could school Chuck on the perils of fortune doughnut pilfering, the phone rang. It was the coroner with news about Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins.

“Mm? Mm hmm. I see.” Emerson hung up the phone. “The missing dead guy in the suitcase has gone missing again.”

Emerson got up from his desk and donned his coat. Chuck remained rooted where she was. “We should talk about what just happened.”

“No, what we should do is take what just happened, put it in a little box, wrap it up tight, slap a stamp on it, and mail it to a far away town in the land of Never Never Speak of It Again Land.”

“But Emerson...”

“Ah ah!” Emerson held up a warning finger and then made a zipping gesture over his lips. He stalked out of the office and Chuck, reluctantly, followed.

***

“I think she's avoiding me.” The Pie Maker ruminated upon Chuck's absence, as he removed the remains of the day's pies from the pie case and wiped each shelf free of crumbs.

“What?” Olive called from the kitchen.

“I said, I think Chuck is avoiding me,” he turned up the volume so that Olive could hear him over the slopping of the mop bucket. Olive was a sloppy mopper.

“Why would she do that?”

“I don't know. I would just like to think that, with all this dad stuff she'd be here, you know? For support. Even though I keep telling her I'm okay, but that's just what I do. I minimize things. I'm a minimizer. She should know by now when I'm minimizing? Right?”

“Well, if you really wanna know what I think...”

But what Olive thought was interrupted by the jaunty jangling of chimes. The Pie Maker sighed and berated himself (or possibly Olive) for failing to lock the door.

“I'm sorry, we're...”

Turning, he found himself surrounded by three young and rather burly Russian bakers. “...closed. Um, Olive?”

“Yeah, Ned?” Olive replied, still sloppy mopping.

“This might seem odd, but I have this overwhelming urge to tell you to run!”

Whether Olive ran or not, the Pie Maker was unaware. Before he himself could follow his own advice, two of the burly bakers were upon him. They popped a floury sack over his head, dragged him into a van waiting out front, and drove off.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Emerson and Chuck entered an eerily deserted and disheveled Pie Hole.

“That's strange,” Chuck mused. “Ned left the door unlocked, but nobody's here. And he never leaves the pies out on the counter like this. Emerson, something's wrong!”

Before Emerson could agree with or dismiss her concern (and for the record, he agreed), several loud bangs and a cry for help caught their attention.

Detective and sidekick rushed into the kitchen, only to find the fruit pantry door blocked by several heavy, overturned pie racks.

“Olive, are you in there?” Chuck called. “Is Ned with you?”

“The Russian baker mob got him!”

Chuck and Emerson exchanged worried looks.

“Hang on, Olive! We're going to get you out of there,” Chuck reassured her.

“There's no time.” Emerson and Chuck spun around like a pair of synchronized swimmers. Chuck gasped. Although it had been twenty years, eighteen weeks, one day, six hours and forty-three minutes since she had last set eyes on the man, he looked as if he had hardly changed at all.

“Emerson! Do you know who this is?”

“Of course I do. That's...”

“Edward Edwards!”

“Ernest Er...hey, wait a minute. You're Edward Edwards? Amateur illusionist, professional bigamist, and all around world's worst father? That Edward Edwards?”

Edward flashed him an aw, shucks grin that his eldest progeny had clearly inherited from him.

“Okay, spill it, E.E. What's your interest in this case?”

“My interest is my son, Mr. Cod. I know where they may be holding Ned. We can talk on the way. Do you have a revolver?”

“Does a bear scratch its butt on a tree in the woods?” Emerson queried, affectionately tapping his coat where the revolver nestled against his ribcage. “Let's go.”

Meanwhile, Olive Snook was still stuck in the fruit pantry.

“Hello? Anybody out there? I'm allergic to moldy fruit. And being trapped.” Olive sighed, leaning her back against the door, and did what she usually did when things went the way they usually went. She began to sing.

> Lady luck never smiles  
>  So lend your love to me, awhile  
>  Do with me what you will  
>  Break the spell take your fill  
>   
>  On and on we rode the storm  
>  The flame has died, the fire has gone  
>  Oh, this empty bed is a night alone  
>  I realized that long ago  
>   
>  Is anybody out there? Anybody there?  
>  Does anybody wonder? Anybody care?  
>   
>  Oh, I just gotta know  
>  If you're really there and you really care  
>  'Cause baby I'm not  
>   
>  F-F-F-Foolin', Ah F-F-Foolin'

_Ah ah ahhhh choo!_

“Aw, nuts.”

***

The facts were these: Some months before Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins' Coney Island misadventure, halfway around the word another sandstorm had uncovered the old fort. Once rediscovered, it was immediately descended upon by the usual mix of archeologists, treasure seekers, and assorted thieves. The fort was emptied of everything of value, and the items put up for sale in various corners of the black market.

Mother Wiggins had a special passion for puzzle boxes, one which her son, Bartholomew, shared. Through her surprisingly disreputable connections (serious puzzle box collectors had at least one or two in their back pocket), she had her sights set on a rare, antique Egyptian box that had recently been uncovered in the desert, and which she had intended as a gift for her son's twentieth birthday. She and her husband traveled to New York to meet the seller, intending to make a long weekend of it, riding the Ferris wheel and eating hotdogs, just as they had done in their youth.

Evgeny Evanoff also had disreputable connections of his own, and had relentlessly followed the box on its journey to America. On the eve of the sale, Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins fell (with an assist from the Russian ex-convict-turned-baker) head-long into a taffy-pulling machine, and came out a good deal taller, thinner, and deader.

Sensing foul play (or perhaps an Egyptian mummy's curse, as he was of a particularly superstitious nature), the fencer went to ground with the item. Unfortunately, this purveyor of purloined goods suffered an aneurism before he could search for another buyer. And the box, containing it's priceless treasure, languished for ten years in a self-storage unit in Parsippany.

Neither he, nor Mrs. Wiggins, ever knew of the immeasurable treasure the box contained. In fact, the precise nature of the treasure was a secret that not even Claas Closson knew. Bartholomew Wiggins had discovered the truth, but he took that information with him to the afterlife. After looking for this particular box for a decade in the hopes of acquiring it in honor of his dearly departed mother, Mr. Wiggins the younger had picked up the antique box for a bargain when the contents of the storage unit were finally auctioned off. Upon solving the puzzle and opening the box, what he found was...another box.

But this was no ordinary box. Indeed, it was an unsolvable puzzle box – the holy grail of puzzle box collectors. A box so ingeniously put together that none but the maker – the renowned Egyptian artisan Mentuhotep himself – could open it, and he had been dead for nearly two thousand years.

Bartholomew Wiggins could scarcely believe his good fortune. On his way home from having the box authenticated and appraised, he stopped by Madame Fortuna's, where he was told to pack his suitcase, for he was soon to be going on a long journey.

It was not, however, Evgeny Evanoff who sent him on that journey. By the time his sister-in-law had tipped him off that the long-lost treasure box was in the hands of a certain patron of her establishment, the body had been found. Evgeny waited for the police to clear out and then searched the apartment and found what he sought. While the Russian had been clever enough to solve the puzzle of the outer box, he had not been clever enough to discern the value of what lay inside. When faced with simply another box – one seemingly empty, by the sound of it – he became enraged. He believed that the young Mr. Wiggins must have discovered the jewels or whatever other priceless artifacts had been in the box, and had already secured them elsewhere. He left, taking the boxes with him for old time's sake.

In the meantime, Edward Edwards in his self-imposed exile was keeping one eye on the Russian's whereabouts, and the other on any sign of the puzzle box resurfacing. He followed the trail to Bartholomew Wiggins, but the unfortunate collector was already dead with his most recent acquisition stolen by the time Edward caught up to him. That's when he, as insurance adjuster Ernest Ernst, hired Emerson to hopefully implicate the Russian in the murder and turn up the missing box.

But his overwhelming guilt and desire to reconcile with his eldest son was nearly his undoing. Evgeny Evanoff spotted him lurking outside the Pie Hole late that night. Recognizing him as one of the three men who had sent him to prison all those years ago, he followed Edward to his motel and confronted him. He repeated what Chuck had inadvertently divulged about Ned, threatening to expose him unless Edward found and returned the treasure that he believed was rightfully his. Edward issued a barrage of counter-threats in defense of his son. But before either of them could make good on their respective threats, the Russian clutched his left arm and keeled over dead from a massive heart attack. Not wanting the authorities searching his motel room and asking awkward (and possibly incriminating) questions, Edward Edwards packed the Russian up into his car and dumped him in a ditch twenty miles outside of town.

***

Edward Edwards relayed some, though not all, of the pertinent information to Emerson and Chuck as they drove to the outskirts of town. By the time they pulled up outside of a warehouse owned by the Wiggins Import/Export Emporium, they knew what he knew – minus the part about his confrontation with the occluded Russian.

The three would-be rescuers found an open door and slipped inside. The place was a dimly-lit maze of narrow aisles lined with tall shelves, chock full of imported and soon-to-be-exported goods of all shapes and sizes.

Chuck gave a low whistle. “It'll take forever to find Ned in here, and who knows what kind of sick and twisted thing those mobsters will have done to him by then!”

“He'll be all right, as long as they believe he's useful,” Edward Edwards assured her. “How long do you think he can hold out?”

Check and Emerson again exchanged worried looks.

“We should split up,” said Chuck, “cover more ground faster.”

“Okay,” said Emerson, “but if you find pie boy, don't you go running in half-cocked. You come and find me first. Got it?”

“Aye, aye, cap...”

“I said, don't do that!”

And so they split up. Chuck went left, Edward Edwards went right, and Emerson made his way straight up the middle.

***

In a storeroom inside the warehouse on the outskirts of town, the Pie Maker, still firmly tied to his Louis XV chair, tried to stall for more time in the hopes that his friend and paramour would come to his rescue.

“So what exactly is it you want to know from the departed Mr. Wiggins?”

The interrogating mobster – Evgeny Evanoff's eldest son, Ivan – ceased brandishing his knife and took a seat opposite the Pie Maker in a very convincing Eames knockoff. The departed Bartholomew Wiggins sat silently slumped over between them in a little Rococo number, while the other two Evanoff progeny leaned near the door, checking their phones and otherwise appearing somewhat bored by the proceedings.

“My father before he disappear tell me of trinket in box,” said Ivan. “We find box, no trinket. Just more box.” Ivan pointed with the knife to a dusty old trunk not three feet away, atop which sat two decorative inlaid wooden boxes, one about half the size of the other. “Trinket is very special to my family – family heirloom, you see? Lost, many years ago.”

“What sort of a trinket is it? I mean, what does it look like?”

“Eh, he never say.” Ivan got up and walked over to the lifeless member of their little trio. “But this man knows what it is and where to find it,” he said, lifting Bartholomew Wiggins' arm by the wrist. He continued, gesturing with the dead man's hand perilously close to the Pie Maker's face. “Make him talk, I let you go and set you up good – free doughnuts for life. Fair deal, yes?”

“Oh yes, very fair,” the Pie Maker replied, dodging away as best he could. It seemed that, although the mobsters knew of his dead-waking ability, they were unaware of precisely how it worked. And so he stalled some more. “I'd be happy to help you if you'd just give me a few minutes – and stop waving his cold, dead hand in my face. These things take time, you know.”

***

Chuck crept stealthy as a mouse along an aisle between large metal shelves filled with antique furniture and sealed wooden cargo boxes. Feeling a sharp tug on the back of her blouse, she turned, stifling a scream.

“Madame Fortuna!”

Madame Fortuna put a gnarled finger to her lips and hissed.

“What are you doing here?” Chuck whispered. “Oh, of course! you're part of the gang that abducted my boyfriend. Where is Ned?” she demanded, forgetting to whisper.

Madame Fortuna hissed again and stamped her foot. She held up a white paper doughnut bag and Chuck fell silent, transfixed. Could this be the fortune doughnut she had waited so long for?

In answer to her longing look, Madame Fortuna snatched the bag back and held it protectively to her chest.

“Not for you! Curse-Lifting Cruller. The maker of pies eats it, no more waking of dead. And you two can finally hey hey hey!” Madame Fortuna waggled her eyebrows suggestively and elbowed Chuck in the ribs.

“Wait, Ned was cursed?”

“Of course he is cursed. How else to explain this thing he does?”

“And if he eats that doughnut, that's it? He'll be cured? And, and we can touch without me being...kaput?”

“Yes yes yes. But in order to work boyfriend must not wake the dead man!”

“Why not?”

“It is stipulation. I have vendetta against brother-in-law Evgeny. We were happy in Kiev! I have life there, business was good. But he drag us to New York after stupid box. I would see his plans fail once and for all.”

“Why did you agree to leave Kiev if you were so happy there?”

“He is financial partner. Also, part of Russian mob. Who would argue? But he is thief. Always try to take doughnut not meant for him. Ptooey! He got what was coming to him.”

“Yvgeny, I mean, Evgeny, is dead then? Who killed him?”

“Nobody kill him. He have heart attack and die. I tell him this is coming and he never listen. They find body in ditch outside town in three days, five days tops. Boyfriend is being held by my nephews. Also no good thieves. Ptooey!”

Madame Fortuna leaned in close, her gnarled finger inches from Chuck's nose. “He must eat doughnut within next eleven minutes for fortune to come true.”

“But why does there have to be a time limit?” Chuck lamented.

“Eh, it makes it more interesting for me. Now go! They are in storage room, back of aisle thirty-seven.”

Madame Fortuna shuffled away into the darkened recesses of the warehouse, leaving Chuck holding the bag with only ten minutes thirty seconds to find and feed it's curse-breaking contents to the Pie Maker.


	5. Chapter 5

Chuck did what she knew had to be done. At the back of aisle thirty-seven, she found the storage room door unlocked, and barged right in.

“Hey everybody! I brought doughnuts,” she said, waving the bag like a white flag.

Ivan the mobster was leaning over, holding Bartholomew Wiggins' left hand just inches from the Pie Maker's face.

“Chuck, no!”

“Ah, dead girlfriend is here,” said Ivan, releasing the hand and allowing Mr. Wiggins to slump once more in his chair. “Now we have lever to beat cooperation out of you.”

“I don't think that's how levers work,” said Ned.

“That is how my levers work. Tie her up!”

Chuck was forcibly escorted to a competently restored Queen Anne armchair. The doughnut bag dropped at her feet.

“What are you doing here? All alone and without any weaponry of any kind?” Ned asked.

“Rescuing you,” Chuck replied, as one of Ivan's brothers deftly bound her hand and foot.

“Of course.”

“And quite possibly solving our biggest, knottiest, most untouchable problem. All you need to do is eat that doughnut within the next,” Chuck strained to catch a glimpse of the watch on her left wrist, “eight minutes and twelve seconds. But whatever happens, Ned, whatever they do or threaten to do, you _cannot_ wake Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins.”

“I trust you have a cunning plan.”

“Of course. But first I need to confess something.”

“That you told Madame Fortuna, and by extension these Russian mobsters, that I can wake the dead, and that you, who at one time were dead, are now indisputably and inexplicably alive?”

“What? No! Well, yes, but that's not...I kissed Emerson.”

“You what? How? Why?”

“We were in his office discussing the case, and I may have eaten part of his fortune doughnut, and then one thing led to another and before I knew it, lip lock.”

“It wasn't a Lonely Hearts Long John, was it?”

“How did you know?”

“Our clientele overlaps with Madame Fortuna's. People talk. I listen.”

“Enough charming banter," Ivan interrupted. "If dead man does not talk in count of ten, you and girlfriend are kaput.”

“But it wasn't the doughnut's fault. Not really," Chuck went on. "If I'm being perfectly honest, and why wouldn't I seeing as how we may both be dead soon, Emerson has become rather dear to me.”

“One...” Ivan kept count, gesturing with the dead man's hand.

“He is sort of endearing, in a surly-but-with-a-heart-of-gold papa bear kind of way.”

“...two...”

“And the three of us make a great team, don't we?”

“..three...”

“A great crime fighting team.”

“...four...”

“You see? A solid foundation upon which to build! Do you think maybe, somehow, we could make room for him in our 'us'?”

“...five...”

Ned gave a lopsided smile.

“...six...”

Chuck countered with a hopeful smile of her own. “Is that a yes?”

“...seven...”

“It's not a no.”

“...eight...”

“So...you're not mad that we kissed?”

“...nine...”

“Nah. Tell you what. If Emerson arrives in the nick of time to save us from certain death at the hands of these Russian mobsters, I might even kiss him myself.”

“...ten!”

“All right Ruskies, drop the dead guy and put your hands up!”

“Hey look, it's Emerson!” Chuck cried. “Arriving just in the nick of time to save us from certain death at the hands of these Russian mobsters!”

“Emerson and...my dad...hurray?”

***

Emerson Cod and Edward Edwards made quick work of rounding up the three mobsters and securing them to the empty chairs once the Pie Maker and Chuck were cut loose. Bartholomew Wiggins remained politely seated where he was.

“Ned! Thank God you're all right!” Edward said. Before the Pie Maker could pointedly ignore him, Chuck rushed to his side, shaking the doughnut bag in front of his eyes.

“Hurry, Ned. You only have two minutes and forty-seven seconds to eat this doughnut and break the curse.”

“What curse?” Emerson and Edward said.

“The dead-waking curse. If Ned eats this doughnut, his powers go poof and we can finally be together. Like, together together.”

“You're not really going to eat that doughnut, are you?” Emerson glowered. “What about me? What about serving the public trust? What about the monetary rewards?”

“Well, I've already given up dead-waking in the service of money-making, so...”

“Okay, son. I understand, really I do. But there's actual honest to goodness treasure at stake here! I need you back in the saddle one more time. If you just get this Wiggins guy to tell you what he did with whatever was in that box, we'll all be rich! And you never have to do it again.”

His father's entreaties moved something deep within the Pie Maker's heart: a longing for paternal connection and approval from which he had, until that moment, nearly convinced himself that he was free. He hesitated, resolve weakening.

“I promise.”

And with those two words, the spell of the siren's song of fatherly affirmation was suddenly broken. The Pie Maker shook himself as if from a stupor.

“You can't just barge back into my life twenty years too late as if nothing's happened and order me to wake the dead!”

“Yeah!” Emerson agreed. “If anyone's going to order him to wake the dead, it's me – the senior business partner. Now wake the damn dead, Ned!”

The Pie Maker looked from Emerson to his father, and finally to Chuck, who only shrugged and smiled sweetly.

“It's up to you. Just know that I'll support you, whatever you choose.” Chuck held the crumpled white doughnut bag out to him. “But you only have thirty seconds to decide.”

The Pie Maker took the bag – over Emerson's and his father's continued objections – opened it and peered in.

At the bottom, nestled in a sheaf of wax paper, lay the fateful doughnut: a simple twisted oblong of cake unadorned by either icing or confectioner's sugar, but to his eyes it seemed bathed in the glowing light of delicious possibility.

“Ten seconds,” said Chuck.

The Pie Maker looked back at her, the bee to his honey comb, the ala to his kazaam, his best friend and love of his life, and smiled.


	6. CODA

In the end, there was more than enough room for Emerson in Chuck and the Pie Maker's 'us'. Not to mention in their penthouse suite on the swanky side of town, bought with the proceeds from the sale of the priceless treasure box. Oh yes, the Pie Maker had been clever enough to figure out the mystery of the lost treasure, without having to resort to disturbing the peaceful slumber of Mr. Bartholomew Wiggins. If the only thing the mobsters found in the original box was another box, well then it stood to reason that it was the second box that was so valuable. The unsolvable puzzle box by the great artisan Mentuhotep fetched a record-breaking price when it was auctioned off at Christy's just before Christmas.

Information on Bartholomew Wiggins' murder-that-wasn't also came to light vis-a-vis Ralston and Maurice. It seemed Mr. Wiggins had something of a Houdini fetish, and was an avid student of Ralston and Maurice's Thursday night _Anyone Can Be an Escape Artist_ classes. They had warned him of the dangers of going solo, but to all appearances he hadn't listened. It was self-inflicted asphyxiation after all.

As for Edward Edwards, Ralston and Maurice were overjoyed to have him back in their lives – this time, for good. Two for the Show became The Great Edwardo and Sons. They were happy, and the Pie Maker was happy for them.

Olive Snook eventually got out of the pantry when Randy Mann happened along and followed the sound of her singing.

As for the Russians, Ivan and his brothers were rounded up from the warehouse by the local authorities and turned over to Interpol. Svetlana and Stepania went back to Kiev and opened a pampushky shop together. Business was good.


End file.
